The Archbishop of Canterbury said Church of England has lost a measure of credibility following the defeat of legislation to introduce women bishops

Dr Rowan Williams speaks at a meeting of the General Synod of the Church of England - where a vote on whether to give final approval to legislation introducing the first women bishops was lost

The Archbishop of Canterbury said today that the Church of England has a “lot of explaining” to do after the General Synod rejected legislation introducing the first women bishops.

Dr Rowan Williams said the Church had “undoubtedly” lost a “measure of credibility” in wider society following the defeat of the legislation.

He told the General Synod: “We have, to put it very bluntly, a lot of explaining to do.

“Whatever the motivation for voting yesterday, whatever the theological principle on which people acted and spoke, the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society.

“Worse than that, it seems as if we are wilfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that wider society.

“We have some explaining to do, we have as a result of yesterday undoubtedly lost a measure of credibility in our society.”

Dr Williams said the General Synod would be under scrutiny following the defeat of the legislation.

The vote last night came in spite of 42 out of 44 dioceses in the Church of England backing the legislation.

Dr Williams said the Church of England “rightly” insisted on a high level of consent for change.

“Failure to secure a two-thirds majority in the House of Laity does not mean that those high levels of consent are necessarily wrong; they do mean that there is a great deal of further work to do done,” he said.

“But that sense of Synod which, for admirable, praiseworthy reasons, gives very strong voice to minority, that sense of Synod needs some explaining and some exploring if it is not simply to be seen as a holding to hostage of Synod by certain groups. That’s part of the explaining we need to do.”

Downing Street said Prime Minister David Cameron shared the disappointment at the result but stressed that it was a decision for the Church rather than Government or Parliament.

His spokesman said: “His personal view is that there should be women bishops and he shares the disappointment of the Archbishop that the Synod was unable to take this forward.

“But it’s for the Church to make a decision on.”

Rt Rev Justin Welby, the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury looks on as Dr Rowan Williams, the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury is given a hug